Movie Monday: Riphagen (2016)

Today’s film is another one of those ones that just cropped up on Netflix and I thought I’d give a spin. At the risk of national stereotyping, my assumption before starting this is that it’s going to be a searching look at the extent of Dutch complicity with the Nazis in WWII — a theme that was famously explored in what (I think?) is the big-name Dutch war movie, Soldier of Orange. Don’t quote me on that, though.

Anyway, I guess my point is that a certain amount of uncomfortable ambiguity or outright condemnation is the norm in European films dealing with this era, which I have to say forms a refreshing contrast to the rah-rah-rah tone in a lot of the other foreign films I watch. But since this movie’s about an asshole who helped the Germans kill Dutch Jews and got away with it, I bet I’m not going to be super happy about the movie, no matter how refreshing it is. Let’s watch.

It’s an interesting approach — we see Riphagen at first as an ambiguous figure, resenting the Germans he works with and seeming to want to protect the hidden Jews he discovers in hiding. And outwardly this seems like a premise with which we’re familiar — a Schindler’s List kind of deal in which someone working within the Nazi system, morally compromised perhaps but ultimately trying to do some kind of good, is going to save some Jewish lives.

Thiiiiis … ain’t that kind of movie. And I almost feel bad about writing it up, because I think that if you went into it cold the twist could be very effective. But who does that? The summary of who Dries Riphagen was is in the Netflix description, and of course I always go and look things up when I’m writing a Movie Monday post (although I don’t speak Dutch, so I’m a bit limited in this case).

There’s a B-plot, as well, in which baby-faced goodie Jan (a cop by day, charged with rounding up Jews and so on) and his buddies in the Resistance try to outwit the Germans and so on. He’s romancing another young patriot, but she might not be all she seems — and perhaps he is not such a baby-faced goodie after all.

There’s a good deal of working the audience based on similarities to other film genres going on here, I think — so a lot of Riphagen’s style (and this seems to be historical) is very based on the kind of American mobster look, and the film plays on that as well; we’re used to seeing really bad, dangerous people as principled in some way or as romantic scoundrels, and the movie plays with that a bit.

But, as it turns out, Riphagen is only helping Jews hide from the Nazis as a means of getting money and valuables out of them for his supposed assistance; once the well is dry, or they start to get wise, they get fed to the Germans, and off strolls Riphagen, pocketing the cash and putting up his mistress in a hapless old Jewish lady’s comfy flat.

One of the Things I Always Say is that it’s a mistake to assume that police states are efficient; most of the time, they’re the same blend of venality, careerism, infighting and incompetence that characterises any human endeavour, but amplified by increased power and lack of oversight. This is a common misconception — perhaps because police states work so hard at presenting an image of ruthless efficiency, or perhaps because people assume that if you try harder at something you get better at it — and I think it’s quite a dangerous one, since it gives people mistaken ideas about public safety policy (to say the least). This isn’t to say police states aren’t dangerous, of course. That was one of the things about The Lives of Others that I really enjoyed: it portrayed the East German police state as a genuine threat without making it seem superhuman.

But actually, most of the film isn’t about Riphagen’s wartime activities: the Allies show up by the halfway mark. A lot of it is focused on Riphagen and his wife and their experiences as the Netherlands fall to the Allies, including his stint as a counter-insurgency type, looking for arms drops for the Resistance and that kind of thing. He keeps playing the double-agent card, and you keep hoping that he’s going to get caught up with, even though you know he won’t. The real people involved in his postwar pursuit and escape, Wim Sanders and Frits Kerkoven, also start to show up as larger characters. It also starts to get into the disorganisation of the late- and post-war Netherlands, including the usual division between Communist and pro-Western Resistance types, just in case you needed a reminder that the good guys aren’t necessarily any better organised.

They do a fine old job of making a city being liberated at the end of WWII — usually portrayed as a sort of joyous holiday — seem sinister and menacing.

So it’s a historical biopic, a crime movie and a spy thriller. It’s a useful corrective to some common notions about the war and at the same time a really frustrating and depressing film. It’s well-made, although to be perfectly honest I’m not sure it quite fills its two-hour-plus running time. Still, I’m glad I watched it, and to the best of my limited knowledge it seems like a reasonable and nuanced portrayal of the complexities and betrayals of wartime Holland.

And in the end, baby-faced goodie Jan comes up short. Virtue is punished, vice rewarded, and everything goes to cold, hard hell.

4 thoughts on “Movie Monday: Riphagen (2016)”

It may have been a good flick but we have NO interest in reading the lines. When I want to watch a Dutch movie . . . I’ll go to the Netherlands!! Getting sick and tired of Netflix and their captioned movies. Will probably cancel!!!!

I love how obvious morons always refer to themselves as “we”, as if they represented some sort of majority whereas in fact their very comments often reveal them to be lone uneducated fools. (although they are to be found in abundance in the U.S they fortunately are not organized.